By Farzana Paleker Following an International Summit on Human Gene Editing in Washington D.C. earlier this month, scientists in the U.S. are now allowed to experiment on human genes - as long as it does not result in a pregnancy. The summit was organized after scientists in China successfully used CRISPR, a DNA editing tool, [...]

By Ellen Arkfeld The days of human genome editing are rapidly approaching with the development of the editing tool CRISPR.  CRISPR grants scientists unprecedented precision and ease in editing the genome.  Unlike previous genetic engineering technologies, CRISPR is highly accurate and allows DNA editing without causing adverse side effects. One application of CRISPR involves the manipulation of human embryos [...]

By Kaitlyn Schaeffer Following a Dateline Documentary that aired in September 2015, Belgium’s struggle with its controversial euthanasia legislation has exploded. The law allows people to voluntarily have their lives ended by doctors even when they’re not terminally ill, so long as they are experiencing “incurable, unbearable suffering.” Since the law was passed, the number [...]

By Rimah Jaber At the Cleveland Clinic, doctors are leading new transplant operations with an organ rarely donated - the uterus. To ensure success of uterus transplants, specialists from both reproductive medicine and transplant surgery have been recruited. The Cleveland Clinic expects to be the first in the United States to perform a uterus transplant [...]

By Ellen Arkfeld Congratulations to the excellent team at NYU Langone Medical Center! We are inspired by the team’s unique medical achievement of the most extensive face transplant and proud of the contribution of one of our honorable GBI Board of Directors’ members, Dr. Bruce Gelb. NYU Langone Medical Center has announced the success of [...]

By Kaitlyn Schaeffer 54-year-old Nicolas Bonnemaison has been convicted of killing a patient in a high-profile trial in France. He was charged with the deaths of seven elderly patients. He was found guilty on six of those counts. He received a two-year suspended sentence. Prosecutor Olivier Tcherkessof said that the doctor is “not a killer,” [...]

By Ellen Arkfeld A new heart transplant technique in Australia has the potential to increase the number of heart transplants by 30 per cent. This could be extremely beneficial to patients in Australia as the country has a shortage of organ donors: only 100 hearts are transplanted in Australia every year, and around 1,600 people [...]

By Kaitlyn Schaeffer A fourteen-year-old girl who was born via in vitro fertilization was ordered by a high court in London to stay in touch with her biological father and his father’s civil partner. The girl lives with her mother and her mother’s civil partner. She has had very little contact with her biological father [...]

By Ellen Arkfeld In recent years, doctors in the UK have noted that younger women are more frequently opting to conceive through In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF). For some, this process provides the opportunity to have children while remaining virgins. The National Health Service (NHS) only covers IVF treatment for heterosexual women who have been trying to [...]

By Farzana Paleker California joined Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Vermont as the fifth state to legalize physician-assisted death when Governor Jerry Brown signed the End of Life Option Act on October fifth. The legislation was propelled to the top of California's public consciousness following the highly publicized death of Brittany Maynard. In 2014, 29-year-old Maynard moved [...]